On Saturday morning right as I was about to shove my kayak off the beach toward Turn Island, a hornet, previously angered mightily by a small dog nearby, landed just below my left knee and stung me.

Naturally I cursed him, squashed his guts out, and left him to wallow in the briny muck at the bottom of my kayak. (Though on this occasion I was a completely innocent party, I have been stung by many a hornet and bee in the past, and I admit for the most part completely deserved their aggression.)

I do have the great fortune of not being allergic to bee stings, so one could imagine my confusion the following morning in the tent when I woke up and noticed my entire left calf strikingly swollen, hot to the touch, and moderately painful.

I tried not to pay it too much attention, and soon after breaking camp and packing up the kayak I was in the car heading back to Seattle. It was at that point I realized just how large my calf had become. Not just swollen…friggin’ huge. Scary big. It looked like someone duplicated my thigh and stuck it above my ankle, or took the bone out of a spiral ham and wrapped its juicy goodness around my tibia. You can take your pick of imagery, but suffice it to say it wasn’t a pretty sight.

NO. I didn’t take a picture of it you sickos, so don’t ask.

Upon the recommendation of persons wiser than myself as soon as I was back home I took some Benadryl, elevated and iced my ballooning appendage. It felt better, but I still had Popeye’s post-spinach forearm for a lower leg. (Sans anchor tattoo of course.)

Monday the swelling started to gradually subside. Late in the day I noticed something I hadn’t before, 3 small pricks in the central part of my calf, directly around the most sensitive (and now lightly bruised) portion of the swelling. AH HA! This wasn’t about the hornet at all! A clever ruse! Mother nature you dog! Smoke and mirrors!

I’m guessing the bites happened Saturday night in the tent, but it could have been in the kayak on the way to the island or in hiking around it as well. Aside from the swollen leg I had no other symptoms that I know of.

Being a huge Larson fan, I’ve always been dying to cry out, preferably in a darkened theater, “Is there an Entomologist in the house?” But only slightly more seriously, my question to you all is, “What the heck bit me?” Spider? Tick? Tsetse fly? Laura? Any guesses?